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Apple To Developers: Fuck You

Posts

So I'm a dev but I know nothing about iPhone development or Apple programming in general. Would this be like Microsoft saying that all Windows programs must be developed using their Visual Studio tools from now on? I can see the quality control argument to an extent, but shit they already put every app through an approval process. It looks more like they just want to fix the system so that they make as much money as possible.

Look, I'm not a developer, but I am a consumer and an economist, and I can't quite grasp what everyone has their panties in a wad over.

Apple is a proprietary developer, which basically means that they control not only the hardware in their products, but the parameters and restrictions in their software development. Every company wants to make the best presentations of optimized products, and if you aren't in charge of the factors that can alter that optimization, you have a much harder time presenting and touting that optimism. Basically, it's a lot like Chrysler letting customers choose their engine specifications from a third-party source; they can't promise you 30mpg if you want to buy a 10-cylinder turbocharger.

It's an Apple product. Apple takes these risks (if they can be called that) at their own peril, and if their developmental restrictions drive engineers and creators away from the medium, they'll reap the rewards in the form of decreased sales and lowered stock value. I get pissed about the way Apple forces the market to accommodate their technology instead of vice-versa (can I please get some fucking Blu-Ray support?!), but Apple isn't doing this at gunpoint, and they usually have pretty good reasons for doing the things they do. Yes, they make questionable choices at times, but it's their products and consumption isn't compulsory.

I'm not really here to defend Apple. I'm by no means a fanboy, and the only product of theirs I own is an iPod touch. But all this hand-wringing seems a lot like yelling at the bouncer when he keeps you out of the club because you're wearing flip-flops and Ed Hardy; the provider sets the rules of exchange, you as a consumer only ever have the option of agreeing to or refusing the exchange. This is the same for everything.

The problem is a sort of fundamental one that we're running into more and more with companies other than Apple; they're just one of the more egregious offenders and so they end up as the whipping boy for it.

From the consumer's point of view, rather than the developer's point of view it's like this: when you buy a device, who really owns the device? If I buy an iPhone, but I can only run software on it that Apple approves of, and Apple puts all kinds of technical hurdles in the way of running anything they don't approve of, then do I really own it?

I think that people have largely accepted this kind of manufacturer-controlled environment for video game consoles, but frankly, video game consoles are basically toys. For actual application software on your computer, if the industry had grown up with this kind of centralized control, the platform would be nowhere near as advanced as it is today. Hell, here's a good example: Microsoft had every intention of leaving Internet Explorer 6 as the web browser for the forseeable future: they'd disbanded the dev team and were going to update the thing about as often as they update, say, Paint, or Notepad. It was only once Firefox started to gain market share that they got off their ass and started adding features. Imagine if they could have just said "No, you can't run Firefox on your Windows computer, because it competes with some of our own software". Where would the Internet be?

The question then is: are modern cellphones like personal computers that fit in your pocket, or are they toys?

The worst part is the arbitrariness of it all. This used to be a major problem for video game consoles as well (Nintendo was a particularly notorious offender back in the SNES days) but they seem to have largely grown out of it. The new Apple iPhone dev rule here is basically just collateral damage in this behind-the-scenes fight between Apple and Adobe, and in the end it's the developers and customers that suffer for it.

From a consumer perspective, the most significant effect is probably that it shrinks the developer base for iPhone. The purpose of Adobe's app compiler was that it provided an easy way for any developer familiar with Flash to create apps without having to learn another language and toolset.

There is also the more abstract point that a trend towards locked down platforms makes innovation less likely.

Look, I'm not a developer, but I am a consumer and an economist, and I can't quite grasp what everyone has their panties in a wad over.

Apple is a proprietary developer, which basically means that they control not only the hardware in their products, but the parameters and restrictions in their software development. Every company wants to make the best presentations of optimized products, and if you aren't in charge of the factors that can alter that optimization, you have a much harder time presenting and touting that optimism. Basically, it's a lot like Chrysler letting customers choose their engine specifications from a third-party source; they can't promise you 30mpg if you want to buy a 10-cylinder turbocharger.

It's an Apple product. Apple takes these risks (if they can be called that) at their own peril, and if their developmental restrictions drive engineers and creators away from the medium, they'll reap the rewards in the form of decreased sales and lowered stock value. I get pissed about the way Apple forces the market to accommodate their technology instead of vice-versa (can I please get some fucking Blu-Ray support?!), but Apple isn't doing this at gunpoint, and they usually have pretty good reasons for doing the things they do. Yes, they make questionable choices at times, but it's their products and consumption isn't compulsory.

I'm not really here to defend Apple. I'm by no means a fanboy, and the only product of theirs I own is an iPod touch. But all this hand-wringing seems a lot like yelling at the bouncer when he keeps you out of the club because you're wearing flip-flops and Ed Hardy; the provider sets the rules of exchange, you as a consumer only ever have the option of agreeing to or refusing the exchange. This is the same for everything.

The problem is a sort of fundamental one that we're running into more and more with companies other than Apple; they're just one of the more egregious offenders and so they end up as the whipping boy for it.

From the consumer's point of view, rather than the developer's point of view it's like this: when you buy a device, who really owns the device? If I buy an iPhone, but I can only run software on it that Apple approves of, and Apple puts all kinds of technical hurdles in the way of running anything they don't approve of, then do I really own it?

I think that people have largely accepted this kind of manufacturer-controlled environment for video game consoles, but frankly, video game consoles are basically toys. For actual application software on your computer, if the industry had grown up with this kind of centralized control, the platform would be nowhere near as advanced as it is today. Hell, here's a good example: Microsoft had every intention of leaving Internet Explorer 6 as the web browser for the forseeable future: they'd disbanded the dev team and were going to update the thing about as often as they update, say, Paint, or Notepad. It was only once Firefox started to gain market share that they got off their ass and started adding features. Imagine if they could have just said "No, you can't run Firefox on your Windows computer, because it competes with some of our own software". Where would the Internet be?

The question then is: are modern cellphones like personal computers that fit in your pocket, or are they toys?

The worst part is the arbitrariness of it all. This used to be a major problem for video game consoles as well (Nintendo was a particularly notorious offender back in the SNES days) but they seem to have largely grown out of it. The new Apple iPhone dev rule here is basically just collateral damage in this behind-the-scenes fight between Apple and Adobe, and in the end it's the developers and customers that suffer for it.

I agree with all of this, but it still doesn't take away from the fact that Apple is making proprietary products. Restriction always comes with the risk of market disapproval.

In your Internet Explorer 6 analogy, you ponder what would happen if MS refused to update their product. Well, what would eventually happen is that developers would move to a different OS and market share would shift; people aren't stupid and they don't usually buy a piece of shit if they can help it. Hell, Microsoft's ineptitude alone is basically responsible for Apple's market share in the first place.

Apple's trademark is simple, consistent technology. Yes, proprietary limitations have been the bane of their potential customers for years on end, but I don't really see how this current incident is anything but an extension of that philosophy. As far as smartphone technology goes, the success of Android models is proof enough that Apple doesn't have a stranglehold on anything, and that competition is still amply possible wherein the needs of the market aren't being met.

Look, I'm not a developer, but I am a consumer and an economist, and I can't quite grasp what everyone has their panties in a wad over.

Apple is a proprietary developer, which basically means that they control not only the hardware in their products, but the parameters and restrictions in their software development. Every company wants to make the best presentations of optimized products, and if you aren't in charge of the factors that can alter that optimization, you have a much harder time presenting and touting that optimism. Basically, it's a lot like Chrysler letting customers choose their engine specifications from a third-party source; they can't promise you 30mpg if you want to buy a 10-cylinder turbocharger.

It's an Apple product. Apple takes these risks (if they can be called that) at their own peril, and if their developmental restrictions drive engineers and creators away from the medium, they'll reap the rewards in the form of decreased sales and lowered stock value. I get pissed about the way Apple forces the market to accommodate their technology instead of vice-versa (can I please get some fucking Blu-Ray support?!), but Apple isn't doing this at gunpoint, and they usually have pretty good reasons for doing the things they do. Yes, they make questionable choices at times, but it's their products and consumption isn't compulsory.

I'm not really here to defend Apple. I'm by no means a fanboy, and the only product of theirs I own is an iPod touch. But all this hand-wringing seems a lot like yelling at the bouncer when he keeps you out of the club because you're wearing flip-flops and Ed Hardy; the provider sets the rules of exchange, you as a consumer only ever have the option of agreeing to or refusing the exchange. This is the same for everything.

The problem is a sort of fundamental one that we're running into more and more with companies other than Apple; they're just one of the more egregious offenders and so they end up as the whipping boy for it.

From the consumer's point of view, rather than the developer's point of view it's like this: when you buy a device, who really owns the device? If I buy an iPhone, but I can only run software on it that Apple approves of, and Apple puts all kinds of technical hurdles in the way of running anything they don't approve of, then do I really own it?

I think that people have largely accepted this kind of manufacturer-controlled environment for video game consoles, but frankly, video game consoles are basically toys. For actual application software on your computer, if the industry had grown up with this kind of centralized control, the platform would be nowhere near as advanced as it is today. Hell, here's a good example: Microsoft had every intention of leaving Internet Explorer 6 as the web browser for the forseeable future: they'd disbanded the dev team and were going to update the thing about as often as they update, say, Paint, or Notepad. It was only once Firefox started to gain market share that they got off their ass and started adding features. Imagine if they could have just said "No, you can't run Firefox on your Windows computer, because it competes with some of our own software". Where would the Internet be?

The question then is: are modern cellphones like personal computers that fit in your pocket, or are they toys?

The worst part is the arbitrariness of it all. This used to be a major problem for video game consoles as well (Nintendo was a particularly notorious offender back in the SNES days) but they seem to have largely grown out of it. The new Apple iPhone dev rule here is basically just collateral damage in this behind-the-scenes fight between Apple and Adobe, and in the end it's the developers and customers that suffer for it.

I don't get why Apple doesn't just wait out Flash's death. You can not rely on websites making iPad apps or HTML5 alternatives. There are just too many different websites and too many different features. It's literally the difference between the iPad being something you use casually on the couch and the magical and revolutionary handheld internet they desperately want you to see it as.

For the record, Unity3D is not banned because it does produce full Xcode projects you can edit in Objective-C

What's illegal is something that spits out binaries with no such project.

And of course, any use of private APIs is banned anyway, for good reason.

This decision doesn't even affect most developers. Most are writing in Objective C anyway, except the really shitty ones who refuse to learn it or are too cheap to buy a mac product for proper development. When iPhone developers see other devs leave they secretly rejoice. Hooray! Less competition.

New Year’s Eve is the best. For one magical night, even the most straight-laced babe feels socially obligated to get blindingly drunk and act like a total whore. Pretty daddy’s girls with blond hair and tight asses swill cheap champagne and toss back shots of peach schnapps until they’re flashing their big, firm tits at any chump who wanders by.

I'm a lot more upset about Apple banning Google Voice on the iPhone than this. That's what's keeping me off the platform.

Requiring developers to use C, C++, Objective C, or JavaScript? Big fucking deal. That's just like console developers exercising control over what gets certified on their platform. Part of the point of the iPhone is that it's closed like a console. There are pros and cons to going that route; and the consumers seem to prefer the pros so far.

As someone who's grown dependent on Google Voice on the other hand, they are effectively forcing me onto Android (or Blackberry).

So I'm a dev but I know nothing about iPhone development or Apple programming in general. Would this be like Microsoft saying that all Windows programs must be developed using their Visual Studio tools from now on? I can see the quality control argument to an extent, but shit they already put every app through an approval process. It looks more like they just want to fix the system so that they make as much money as possible.

Look, I'm not a developer, but I am a consumer and an economist, and I can't quite grasp what everyone has their panties in a wad over.

[Summary: Apple's toy, Apple's rules]

I don't really see what the two have in common. What doesn't Apple's right to lock their platform have to do with people disliking them doing it?

Nothing, really. Like I said, I'm not entirely over-the-moon with them either, mostly due to their lacking blu-ray support. But Jobs is big on two things: keeping everything under the Apple wheelhouse, and controlling the development market.

People are super-pissed about the last part, but it's been Apple's M.O. since almost day one. The problem now is that instead of Apple being a fringe market, everyone is on the bandwagon and more people are being pissy about not have completely open development.

Really, it's just an issue of scale at this point, not an issue of new policy.

So I'm a dev but I know nothing about iPhone development or Apple programming in general. Would this be like Microsoft saying that all Windows programs must be developed using their Visual Studio tools from now on? I can see the quality control argument to an extent, but shit they already put every app through an approval process. It looks more like they just want to fix the system so that they make as much money as possible.

Also I don't know if anyone has been keeping score, but adobe and apple have had beef way before this Flash thing. Adobe has consitently fucked over the Mac with their creative suite stuff before. The Mac version of their software always took a backseat to Windows versions. It's why there is no 64 bit CS4 on the Mac.

So really, this decision is a justified Fuck you to Adobe and it's Flash.

New Year’s Eve is the best. For one magical night, even the most straight-laced babe feels socially obligated to get blindingly drunk and act like a total whore. Pretty daddy’s girls with blond hair and tight asses swill cheap champagne and toss back shots of peach schnapps until they’re flashing their big, firm tits at any chump who wanders by.

Also I don't know if anyone has been keeping score, but adobe and apple have had beef way before this Flash thing. Adobe has consitently fucked over the Mac with their creative suite stuff before. The Mac version of their software always took a backseat to Windows versions. It's why there is no 64 bit CS4 on the Mac.

So really, this decision is a justified Fuck you to Adobe and it's Flash.

Yeah, as far as the Flash thing goes, Jobs is entirely justified. Running Flash on my wife's MacBook Pro is a fucking chore, yet my far-shittier Windows laptop runs it with no notable difficulty. Literally one YouTube video will overheat her computer to the point of disability.

So I'm a dev but I know nothing about iPhone development or Apple programming in general. Would this be like Microsoft saying that all Windows programs must be developed using their Visual Studio tools from now on? I can see the quality control argument to an extent, but shit they already put every app through an approval process. It looks more like they just want to fix the system so that they make as much money as possible.

"The naturalistic fallacy is often claimed to be a formal fallacy. It was described and named by British philosopher G. E. Moore in his 1903 book Principia Ethica. Moore stated that a naturalistic fallacy was committed whenever a philosopher attempts to prove a claim about ethics by appealing to a definition of the term "good" in terms of one or more natural properties (such as "pleasant", "more evolved", "desired", etc.)."

I love google and being able to find my answers with less than 20 seconds of research, don't you Atomic Ross.... oh apparently you don't

So I'm a dev but I know nothing about iPhone development or Apple programming in general. Would this be like Microsoft saying that all Windows programs must be developed using their Visual Studio tools from now on? I can see the quality control argument to an extent, but shit they already put every app through an approval process. It looks more like they just want to fix the system so that they make as much money as possible.

So, I just came across this thread, searching on my iMac, using a Airport Wireless router, with my iPod mini and various other Mac items safely stowed not far away under my desk rim. I like Macintosh.
I also hate Apple for this bullshit with the iPhone. And i'm glad now that i'm planning on buying a Droid anyways.

So, after skimming the posts, am I to believe that people think Apple's reasoning for changing allowable iPhone app codes to a format more in line with theirs is a business move/anti Flash code move? Or are they simply acting like Microsoft did and still does when it comes to technology compatibility? (Which means, Heil Fuhrer Jobbs, glorious deliverer of the future).

Look, I'm not a developer, but I am a consumer and an economist, and I can't quite grasp what everyone has their panties in a wad over.

Apple is a proprietary developer, which basically means that they control not only the hardware in their products, but the parameters and restrictions in their software development. Every company wants to make the best presentations of optimized products, and if you aren't in charge of the factors that can alter that optimization, you have a much harder time presenting and touting that optimism. Basically, it's a lot like Chrysler letting customers choose their engine specifications from a third-party source; they can't promise you 30mpg if you want to buy a 10-cylinder turbocharger.

It's an Apple product. Apple takes these risks (if they can be called that) at their own peril, and if their developmental restrictions drive engineers and creators away from the medium, they'll reap the rewards in the form of decreased sales and lowered stock value. I get pissed about the way Apple forces the market to accommodate their technology instead of vice-versa (can I please get some fucking Blu-Ray support?!), but Apple isn't doing this at gunpoint, and they usually have pretty good reasons for doing the things they do. Yes, they make questionable choices at times, but it's their products and consumption isn't compulsory.

I'm not really here to defend Apple. I'm by no means a fanboy, and the only product of theirs I own is an iPod touch. But all this hand-wringing seems a lot like yelling at the bouncer when he keeps you out of the club because you're wearing flip-flops and Ed Hardy; the provider sets the rules of exchange, you as a consumer only ever have the option of agreeing to or refusing the exchange. This is the same for everything.

The problem is a sort of fundamental one that we're running into more and more with companies other than Apple; they're just one of the more egregious offenders and so they end up as the whipping boy for it.

From the consumer's point of view, rather than the developer's point of view it's like this: when you buy a device, who really owns the device? If I buy an iPhone, but I can only run software on it that Apple approves of, and Apple puts all kinds of technical hurdles in the way of running anything they don't approve of, then do I really own it?

I think that people have largely accepted this kind of manufacturer-controlled environment for video game consoles, but frankly, video game consoles are basically toys. For actual application software on your computer, if the industry had grown up with this kind of centralized control, the platform would be nowhere near as advanced as it is today. Hell, here's a good example: Microsoft had every intention of leaving Internet Explorer 6 as the web browser for the forseeable future: they'd disbanded the dev team and were going to update the thing about as often as they update, say, Paint, or Notepad. It was only once Firefox started to gain market share that they got off their ass and started adding features. Imagine if they could have just said "No, you can't run Firefox on your Windows computer, because it competes with some of our own software". Where would the Internet be?

The question then is: are modern cellphones like personal computers that fit in your pocket, or are they toys?

The worst part is the arbitrariness of it all. This used to be a major problem for video game consoles as well (Nintendo was a particularly notorious offender back in the SNES days) but they seem to have largely grown out of it. The new Apple iPhone dev rule here is basically just collateral damage in this behind-the-scenes fight between Apple and Adobe, and in the end it's the developers and customers that suffer for it.

I agree with all of this, but it still doesn't take away from the fact that Apple is making proprietary products. Restriction always comes with the risk of market disapproval.

In your Internet Explorer 6 analogy, you ponder what would happen if MS refused to update their product. Well, what would eventually happen is that developers would move to a different OS and market share would shift; people aren't stupid and they don't usually buy a piece of shit if they can help it. Hell, Microsoft's ineptitude alone is basically responsible for Apple's market share in the first place.

Apple's trademark is simple, consistent technology. Yes, proprietary limitations have been the bane of their potential customers for years on end, but I don't really see how this current incident is anything but an extension of that philosophy. As far as smartphone technology goes, the success of Android models is proof enough that Apple doesn't have a stranglehold on anything, and that competition is still amply possible wherein the needs of the market aren't being met.

Apple does seem to have an outdated impression of their dominance of the smartphone market and by extention "third platform" between notebooks and pc's. For a while, the iPhone was akin to windows in that it was the only smartphone platform that actually delivered on the conceptual potential of what that kind of device could do. Others had clunky browsers, failed at fundamental things like including an actual headphone port, or had problems implementing an affordable data plan, which stood in the way of allowing for connectivity reliant apps.

The iphone used to be the one device that cut down all these issues in one swoop, but today, HTC and Blackberry have caught up, with the only disadvantage being the lack of apps, due to apple's headstart. This gap is going to shrink and this latest decision doesn't help apple much.

Also I don't know if anyone has been keeping score, but adobe and apple have had beef way before this Flash thing. Adobe has consitently fucked over the Mac with their creative suite stuff before. The Mac version of their software always took a backseat to Windows versions. It's why there is no 64 bit CS4 on the Mac.

So really, this decision is a justified Fuck you to Adobe and it's Flash.

So anger from Apple towards Adobe for maximizing profit is justified, but anger from consumers towards Apple for maximizing profit isn't?

Also I don't know if anyone has been keeping score, but adobe and apple have had beef way before this Flash thing. Adobe has consitently fucked over the Mac with their creative suite stuff before. The Mac version of their software always took a backseat to Windows versions. It's why there is no 64 bit CS4 on the Mac.

So really, this decision is a justified Fuck you to Adobe and it's Flash.

Yes, that's all Adobe's fault, and the fact that Apple under Jobs has always had a massive case of NIH syndrome should be completely ignored, hmm?

It's not just market share that discouraged developers from developing for Mac.

The iphone used to be the one device that cut down all these issues in one swoop, but today, HTC and Blackberry have caught up, with the only disadvantage being the lack of apps, due to apple's headstart. This gap is going to shrink and this latest decision doesn't help apple much.

I think it's a bit of wait-and-see.

Windows PCs are a lot more devoper-friendly than Apple ever has been, and while that certainly has expanded their marketshare, it hasn't done them any favors in the stability and utility departments.

Right now, I'm not sure how much third-party development people are looking for in a smartphone. I can say that personally I'd rather have a rigid, yet perfectly working product over an ambitious, yet broken product when it comes to any potential smartphone application.

But I freely admit I'm probably not their key demographic, as I spend about $1/month at the App Store.

Also I don't know if anyone has been keeping score, but adobe and apple have had beef way before this Flash thing. Adobe has consitently fucked over the Mac with their creative suite stuff before. The Mac version of their software always took a backseat to Windows versions. It's why there is no 64 bit CS4 on the Mac.

So really, this decision is a justified Fuck you to Adobe and it's Flash.

So anger from Apple towards Adobe for maximizing profit is justified, but anger from consumers towards Apple for maximizing profit isn't?

It isn't exactly an equal argument.

Customers can still choose a different OS. Apple can only court developers for Apple OS.

New Year’s Eve is the best. For one magical night, even the most straight-laced babe feels socially obligated to get blindingly drunk and act like a total whore. Pretty daddy’s girls with blond hair and tight asses swill cheap champagne and toss back shots of peach schnapps until they’re flashing their big, firm tits at any chump who wanders by.

New Year’s Eve is the best. For one magical night, even the most straight-laced babe feels socially obligated to get blindingly drunk and act like a total whore. Pretty daddy’s girls with blond hair and tight asses swill cheap champagne and toss back shots of peach schnapps until they’re flashing their big, firm tits at any chump who wanders by.

From a consumer perspective, the most significant effect is probably that it shrinks the developer base for iPhone. The purpose of Adobe's app compiler was that it provided an easy way for any developer familiar with Flash to create apps without having to learn another language and toolset.

There is also the more abstract point that a trend towards locked down platforms makes innovation less likely.

Well I guess I will wait and see whether either of those actually materialise as tangible flaws.

From a consumer perspective, the most significant effect is probably that it shrinks the developer base for iPhone. The purpose of Adobe's app compiler was that it provided an easy way for any developer familiar with Flash to create apps without having to learn another language and toolset.

There is also the more abstract point that a trend towards locked down platforms makes innovation less likely.

Well I guess I will wait and see whether either of those actually materialise as tangible flaws.

They're both kind of difficult to judge, really. How do you tell if developers would have made a product but didn't?

At the moment, it seems that various entities, developers, etc. are happy enough to go out of their way to support the iPhone, but Apple making it difficult to support in the context of the wider device market means that may not always be the case.

For the record, Unity3D is not banned because it does produce full Xcode projects you can edit in Objective-C

What's illegal is something that spits out binaries with no such project.

And of course, any use of private APIs is banned anyway, for good reason.

This decision doesn't even affect most developers. Most are writing in Objective C anyway, except the really shitty ones who refuse to learn it or are too cheap to buy a mac product for proper development. When iPhone developers see other devs leave they secretly rejoice. Hooray! Less competition.

I wouldn't be so sure that Unity3D isn't banned. It compiles unity scripts to .NET bytecode, then to iPhone binary library using Mono develop, which is then linked to an Objective C project that contains the cocoa touch interface code (although possibly no more than a simple NIB and a little wrapper). That does run afoul of the letter of Apple's law. They don't distinguish between Flash CS5 spitting out a finished binary on Windows and Mono develop spitting out a library that you can statically link to in an XCode project.

Maybe the first is what they intended to ban and the second they're fine with, but their terse policy wording reveals none of that.

Look, I'm not a developer, but I am a consumer and an economist, and I can't quite grasp what everyone has their panties in a wad over.

Apple is a proprietary developer, which basically means that they control not only the hardware in their products, but the parameters and restrictions in their software development. Every company wants to make the best presentations of optimized products, and if you aren't in charge of the factors that can alter that optimization, you have a much harder time presenting and touting that optimism. Basically, it's a lot like Chrysler letting customers choose their engine specifications from a third-party source; they can't promise you 30mpg if you want to buy a 10-cylinder turbocharger.

It's an Apple product. Apple takes these risks (if they can be called that) at their own peril, and if their developmental restrictions drive engineers and creators away from the medium, they'll reap the rewards in the form of decreased sales and lowered stock value. I get pissed about the way Apple forces the market to accommodate their technology instead of vice-versa (can I please get some fucking Blu-Ray support?!), but Apple isn't doing this at gunpoint, and they usually have pretty good reasons for doing the things they do. Yes, they make questionable choices at times, but it's their products and consumption isn't compulsory.

I'm not really here to defend Apple. I'm by no means a fanboy, and the only product of theirs I own is an iPod touch. But all this hand-wringing seems a lot like yelling at the bouncer when he keeps you out of the club because you're wearing flip-flops and Ed Hardy; the provider sets the rules of exchange, you as a consumer only ever have the option of agreeing to or refusing the exchange. This is the same for everything.

The problem is a sort of fundamental one that we're running into more and more with companies other than Apple; they're just one of the more egregious offenders and so they end up as the whipping boy for it.

From the consumer's point of view, rather than the developer's point of view it's like this: when you buy a device, who really owns the device? If I buy an iPhone, but I can only run software on it that Apple approves of, and Apple puts all kinds of technical hurdles in the way of running anything they don't approve of, then do I really own it?

I think that people have largely accepted this kind of manufacturer-controlled environment for video game consoles, but frankly, video game consoles are basically toys. For actual application software on your computer, if the industry had grown up with this kind of centralized control, the platform would be nowhere near as advanced as it is today. Hell, here's a good example: Microsoft had every intention of leaving Internet Explorer 6 as the web browser for the forseeable future: they'd disbanded the dev team and were going to update the thing about as often as they update, say, Paint, or Notepad. It was only once Firefox started to gain market share that they got off their ass and started adding features. Imagine if they could have just said "No, you can't run Firefox on your Windows computer, because it competes with some of our own software". Where would the Internet be?

The question then is: are modern cellphones like personal computers that fit in your pocket, or are they toys?

The worst part is the arbitrariness of it all. This used to be a major problem for video game consoles as well (Nintendo was a particularly notorious offender back in the SNES days) but they seem to have largely grown out of it. The new Apple iPhone dev rule here is basically just collateral damage in this behind-the-scenes fight between Apple and Adobe, and in the end it's the developers and customers that suffer for it.

I agree with all of this, but it still doesn't take away from the fact that Apple is making proprietary products. Restriction always comes with the risk of market disapproval.

In your Internet Explorer 6 analogy, you ponder what would happen if MS refused to update their product. Well, what would eventually happen is that developers would move to a different OS and market share would shift; people aren't stupid and they don't usually buy a piece of shit if they can help it. Hell, Microsoft's ineptitude alone is basically responsible for Apple's market share in the first place.

Apple's trademark is simple, consistent technology. Yes, proprietary limitations have been the bane of their potential customers for years on end, but I don't really see how this current incident is anything but an extension of that philosophy. As far as smartphone technology goes, the success of Android models is proof enough that Apple doesn't have a stranglehold on anything, and that competition is still amply possible wherein the needs of the market aren't being met.

Apple does seem to have an outdated impression of their dominance of the smartphone market and by extention "third platform" between notebooks and pc's. For a while, the iPhone was akin to windows in that it was the only smartphone platform that actually delivered on the conceptual potential of what that kind of device could do. Others had clunky browsers, failed at fundamental things like including an actual headphone port, or had problems implementing an affordable data plan, which stood in the way of allowing for connectivity reliant apps.

The iphone used to be the one device that cut down all these issues in one swoop, but today, HTC and Blackberry have caught up, with the only disadvantage being the lack of apps, due to apple's headstart. This gap is going to shrink and this latest decision doesn't help apple much.

Woo can actually use some knowledge from a Strategic Management project I just handed in on Thursday.

I’m not trying to take anything away from Apple, they have done a tremendous job in penetrating the smartphone market in such a short time. However Apple is not dominating the smartphone industry, they aren’t even close to selling the number of smartphones that RIM does and RIM itself isn’t the market leader. Didn’t really get a chance to look into the extra revenues their apps provide which is probably a good boost but on a handset sold per year basis they still have a long way to go before reaching dominance. Again they are doing really well but not near as well as most people seem to assume (go advertising and media skewing perspectives)

Even though Apple has by far the most apps of any platform, Apple didn’t have a head start with apps and even provides less of the revenue to developers than competitors such as RIM. They were however the first to put some real effort and resources into pushing the importance of third party applications as a competitive advantage.

Apple has two other things that most of their competitors don’t which will be hard for them to duplicate and will help them continue to keep a lead in the number of applications for their device. They have a pretty set standard for their phone so developers don’t have to create multiple versions of an app and they have a customer base for whom apps are very important. Due to this I would expect this new change in policy to at most have a minimal affect.

Don't some iPhone users jailbreak that shit anyways for this very reason? I know most are 13 year olds kids like my brother who just jailbreak it to avoid paying for it, but I'd imagine anyone who wanted to develop in whatever language they wanted to could do so quite easily.

Woo can actually use some knowledge from a Strategic Management project I just handed in on Thursday.

I’m not trying to take anything away from Apple, they have done a tremendous job in penetrating the smartphone market in such a short time. However Apple is not dominating the smartphone industry, they aren’t even close to selling the number of smartphones that RIM does and RIM itself isn’t the market leader.

I have no experience in business or programming, but here's my two cents.

Apple doesn't care. Apple has maintained a hardcore minority marketshare for a long, long time, and they will continue to do so. They will spend a greater share of their budget on R&D and they will make trendy products that ~70% of the population will ignore or deride for being overpriced and restrictive. This is their way.

I don't think they're in it to be the biggest, or to provide whatever it is the open source crowd wants. They make money (I believe they outperform the industry average since Jobs took the company over again) by making a slick but limited computing experience, and I for one am totally on board with that most of the time.

Frankly, Apple should have its own chapter in an econ. textbook, it is a weird, weird company.

Also I don't know if anyone has been keeping score, but adobe and apple have had beef way before this Flash thing. Adobe has consitently fucked over the Mac with their creative suite stuff before. The Mac version of their software always took a backseat to Windows versions. It's why there is no 64 bit CS4 on the Mac.

So really, this decision is a justified Fuck you to Adobe and it's Flash.

Apple sort of brought that on themselves: the first time Adobe heard that OSX was going over to Intel was, well, the same time as everyone else found out. When they're your largest third-party developer, that's bad.

Frankly, if I were running Adobe, I would announce that the next version of Adobe CS would be Windows-only; it would kill off Macs in the professional graphics sphere in one swell foop, because what the fuck are they going to use, The GIMP?

Also I don't know if anyone has been keeping score, but adobe and apple have had beef way before this Flash thing. Adobe has consitently fucked over the Mac with their creative suite stuff before. The Mac version of their software always took a backseat to Windows versions. It's why there is no 64 bit CS4 on the Mac.

So really, this decision is a justified Fuck you to Adobe and it's Flash.

Apple sort of brought that on themselves: the first time Adobe heard that OSX was going over to Intel was, well, the same time as everyone else found out. When they're your largest third-party developer, that's bad.

Frankly, if I were running Adobe, I would announce that CS5 would be Windows-only; it would kill off Macs in the professional graphics sphere in one swell foop, because what the fuck are they going to use, The GIMP?

Actually, there's a strong argument that Apple's trying to do exactly that in order to introduce their own competitor to Photoshop.

This move sucks. It's overly restrictive to developers and prevents them from having all the tools they choose to make the best apps they can.

It's also unlikely to affect the iPhone's popularity in the least.

Bongi, though knee-jerk, was absolutely right. This move isn't going to affect customers in any tangible way... as long as they get their apps, they're happy. Besides, Apple's been jerks to the app developers before (especially their previous ban on discussion of how to program for the damn thing), and the devs just griped about it for a while, then kept right on developing. They will this time, too.

Why? Because Apple's app store is by far the best-selling (others don't even come close) and easiest to develop for. Though there are complaints about the 1st and 2nd gen iPhones getting left behind in the upcoming OS update, developers for other app stores have many, MANY times the compatibility headaches. Android phones have a wide variety of processors, some have physical keyboards and some don't, some have more buttons than others, and many of them STILL release with very old versions of the OS, with no ability to upgrade. Long story short, there's much less of an issue with compatibility with the iPhone than with any other smartphone.

I really wish the iPhone were more open. But the average customer just doesn't care and just keeps on buying it. It's the same reason Linux never became a legitimate threat to Windows... people just want something that works reasonably well rather than something open but more complicated.

I really wish the iPhone were more open. But the average customer just doesn't care and just keeps on buying it. It's the same reason Linux never became a legitimate threat to Windows... people just want something that works reasonably well rather than something open that will crash their computer and introduce a shitload of security vulnerabilities.

I really wish the iPhone were more open. But the average customer just doesn't care and just keeps on buying it. It's the same reason Linux never became a legitimate threat to Windows... people just want something that works reasonably well rather than something open that will crash their computer and introduce a shitload of security vulnerabilities.